No Place Like Home?: Feminist Ethics and Home Health Care (Medical Ethics)

"No Place Like Home? combines the rigorous scholarship of an academic feminist philosopher with the 'close to the ground' insights that come from bathing, feeding, and caring for older people as a home care aide. This book develops recent work in feminist philosophy that attends to both care and justice to propose a way to reform home care to reduce its exploitative qualities while assuring that it is more than 'bed and body' work." -- Martha B. Holstein, Visiting Scholar, Center for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Illinois, Chicago and co-editor, Ethics and Community Based Elder Care "For a scathing critique of how American society abuses both those who receive home-based care as well as those who provide it, and a sophisticated vision of how we might move toward a more just future, there's no book like No Place Like Home?." -- James Lindemann Nelson, co-author of Alzheimer's: Answers to Hard Questions for Families "[Jennifer Parks's] critique of current practices and institutions is thorough and accurate, benefiting both from her own experience as a homecare worker and the philosophically sophisticated tools she brings to bear on it." -- Laura Purdy, Professor of Philosophy, Wells College In this provocative new book, Jennifer A. Parks analyzes practices in the home health care industry and concludes that they are highly exploitative of both workers and patients. Under the existing system, underpaid workers are expected to perform tasks for which they are inadequately trained, in unreasonably short periods of time. This situation, Parks argues, harms workers and puts home health care patients at risk. To the extent that the majority of patients and workers in home health care are women, she turns to feminist ethics for an alternative approach. Through an understanding of individuals as social beings with obligations to others, and of home health care as a public good, Parks explains how to develop the social benefits of good home health care and increase the role of government in providing financial support and regulatory oversight.

"No Place Like Home? combines the rigorous scholarship of an academic feminist philosopher with the 'close to the ground' insights that come from bathing, feeding, and caring for older people as a home care aide. This book develops recent work in feminist philosophy that attends to both care and justice to propose a way to reform home care to reduce its exploitative qualities while assuring that it is more than 'bed and body' work." —Martha B. Holstein, Visiting Scholar, Center for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Illinois, Chicago and co-editor, Ethics and Community Based Elder Care

"For a scathing critique of how American society abuses both those who receive home-based care as well as those who provide it, and a sophisticated vision of how we might move toward a more just future, there's no book like No Place Like Home?." —James Lindemann Nelson, co-author of Alzheimer's: Answers to Hard Questions for Families

"[Jennifer Parks's] critique of current practices and institutions is thorough and accurate, benefiting both from her own experience as a homecare worker and the philosophically sophisticated tools she brings to bear on it." —Laura Purdy, Professor of Philosophy, Wells College

In this provocative new book, Jennifer A. Parks analyzes practices in the home health care industry and concludes that they are highly exploitative of both workers and patients. Under the existing system, underpaid workers are expected to perform tasks for which they are inadequately trained, in unreasonably short periods of time. This situation, Parks argues, harms workers and puts home health care patients at risk. To the extent that the majority of patients and workers in home health care are women, she turns to feminist ethics for an alternative approach. Through an understanding of individuals as social beings with obligations to others, and of home health care as a public good, Parks explains how to develop the social benefits of good home health care and increase the role of government in providing financial support and regulatory oversight.

"In this book, Jennifer A. Parks closely analyzes practices in the home health care industry and concludes that they are highly exploitative of both workers and patients. Under the existing system, underpaid workers are expected to perform tasks for which they are inadequately trained, in unreasonably short periods of time. This situation, Parks argues, harms workers and home health care patients alike. To the extent that the majority of patients and workers in home health care are women, she turns to feminist ethics for an alternative approach. Through an understanding of individuals as social beings with obligations to others, and of home health care as a public good, Parks explains how to develop the social benefits of good home health care and increase the role of government in providing financial support and regulatory oversight."--BOOK JACKET Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgments......Page 10 Introduction......Page 14 1. Why Home Care? The Genesis of Home or “Community-Based” Care......Page 22 2. Examining Philosophies of Home Care......Page 46 3. Women’s Care Work as a Subsidy to the State......Page 64 4. Caring about the Cared-For......Page 86 5. The Personal Is Political: Negotiating Relationships within the Home Care Setting......Page 105 6. Looking Ahead: Can Home Care Be Reformed?......Page 133 Notes......Page 156 Works Cited......Page 166 Index......Page 174 About the Author......Page 176 This provactive new book analyzes practices in the home health care industry and concludes that they are highly exploitative of both workers and patients. It offers a scathing critique of how American society abuses those who receive home-based care and those who provide it and a sophisticated vision of how we might move toward a more just future